THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 13, 1995 TAG: 9508130631
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JOE JACKSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DOBSON, N.C. LENGTH: Long : 142 lines
Wilma Arnder dreaded the day last year when she retired from her job as an inspector in a chicken plant. Where other retirees might fill their time with hobbies or travel, Arnder dwelt on the slaying of her 18-year-old son Kenneth - and on the approaching execution of Dennis W. Stockton, the man convicted of his murder.
Now, the 65-year-old Arnder counts down the hours until Sept. 27, the day Stockton is scheduled to die in Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, a state away.
Throughout his trial and during his 12 years on death row, Stockton has denied murdering Kenneth Arnder. But Arnder's mother has no doubt that Stockton is responsible, she said recently in an interview at her home.
``I think Dennis is guilty,'' she said. ``He may not have pulled the trigger - he may not have been the only one involved. But that doesn't make him any less guilty. . . . The first time I saw him after Kenny was killed, you could see the guilt. It was like he couldn't hardly look us in the face.''
Even recent developments in Stockton's case raising questions about his guilt have not changed Wilma Arnder's mind. In April, the key witness in Stockton's 1983 trial recanted his testimony in an interview with The Virginian-Pilot. The witness, Randy Bowman, testified that he heard Stockton accept money from another felon to kill Kenneth Arnder, whose body was found near Mount Airy, N.C. He had been shot in the head and his hands had been hacked off.
Bowman told the newspaper this year that he never heard the money-for-hire deal. But the Virginia attorney general's office later filed an affidavit in federal court in which Bowman claimed he never recanted.
``I talked to Randy Bowman before he testified against Dennis,'' Arnder said.
``He was scared to death - not of Stockton, but of Tommy McBride,'' the felon who allegedly paid Stockton to kill her son.
``I don't think Randy Bowman was lying. What he said in court, that was right after it happened. What he said this April, that was 12 years later. There's a lot of things I don't remember that far back. You can't remember everything.''
Yet even with such certainty of his guilt, Wilma Arnder said she feels no satisfaction in Stockton's execution. No real sense of vindication, not now, 17 years after her son's 1978 murder.
``I don't know if I will go to the execution,'' the small woman said quietly during the interview, her fingers lacing together as she talked. ``My sister said she would love to go. But for me, I don't know. . . . At one time, it wouldn't have bothered me to stand Dennis up against a pole and shoot him as full of holes as a sifter. But I don't feel that way now.''
Instead, there's only a sense of exhaustion, she indicated. And a sadness that fills her days.
``I wish Dennis could have been something else,'' she said. ``He was so well-mannered. He had such a nice voice on the telephone. How could he be a killer?
``I just feel sad about his being so intelligent and turning to crime. It's a waste. A waste of an intelligent person. A waste of a life.''
The lives of Wilma Arnder and Dennis Stockton intersected in July 1978, over the body of her son. At the time, they all lived in Mount Airy, the hometown of Andy Griffith. Before her son's death, she had only seen Stockton two or three times, she said. Since then, in one way or another, Stockton has been in her thoughts daily.
Stockton was no stranger to the law when he was charged with Arnder's murder four years later. His record was already peppered with burglary, forgery, weapons and drug charges. Yet Stockton's friends and acquaintances were very loyal, Wilma Arnder said. Her son Kenny was one such friend.
Kenny Arnder was the second youngest of Wilma Arnder's six children, a friendly boy who ``wouldn't lie to me'' but who apparently kept information about the rough crowd he ran with from his mother, Wilma said.
In July 1978, Kenny was being accused of ``stealing some wheels'' from another man, she recalled. Kenny decided to hide out in remote Kibler Valley across the state border in Patrick County, Va., until the matter was cleared up. Stockton drove him to Kibler Valley. Kenny gave his mother directions on where to pick him up a day or two later. Instead, Kenneth Arnder disappeared.
A few days later, on July 25, 1978, her son's body was found in a wooded area near Mount Airy. Arnder had been shot in the head and his hands hacked off above the wrists, reportedly a message that this was a drug-related killing, police said.
Wilma Arnder told police she last saw her son alive with Stockton. North Carolina authorities investigated but never filed charges.
Then Virginia jumped in, charging Stockton with capital murder in 1982. According to the state, Stockton killed Arnder in Kibler Valley, then moved his body back to North Carolina. No physical evidence ever linked Stockton to Arnder or the murder to Virginia. No murder weapon was found. But Bowman said Stockton accepted $1,500 to kill Arnder, and that was enough for a murder-for-hire charge, punishable by death.
Wilma Arnder wasn't surprised when Stockton was charged. ``I thought it would happen sooner or later,'' she said. ``Dennis called several times while Kenny was missing. The night Kenny's body was identified, Dennis called me again.
``I told him I was expecting a call from the SBI (the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation),'' she said. ``They were going to identify the body. Dennis asked me how. I said with dental records. He hung up. . . . He never called me again.
``During the investigation, I was hoping they'd find out somebody else did it, because Dennis was supposed to be Kenny's friend,'' Wilma said. ``Kenny must have trusted Dennis. It takes a cold-blooded killer to kill someone who thinks you're his friend.''
In 1986, Stockton came within days of execution when he renewed his appeals. At that time, Wilma Arnder had come to think Stockton would be executed. But as his appeals continued through state and federal courts, Arnder started to believe she would never live to see his execution.
Even today, she finds it heard to believe that the execution will actually occur. Stockton talks now like he is convinced he soon will die. But Wilma Arnder half-believes there could be another delay.
And, in a way, Stockton's execution won't erase the pain, she added. ``I don't think I'll ever get over Kenny being killed,'' she said. She lives with a daughter now, sometimes crafting antique chairs out of clothespins, reading news accounts of Stockton's case.
``The whole mystery of why Kenny was killed will never be answered. . . . Nothing will ever be the same.''
After Kenneth Arnder's death, his grave was desecrated. Someone knocked the hands off a stone angel - just like his hands had been hacked off - presumably to repeat the message that the killing was drug-related. When the family repaired the damage, the hands were knocked off again.
Now Kenneth Arnder lies beneath a flat stone carved with praying hands set in the back of a shadeless Mount Airy graveyard. The family sends flowers, and sometimes the flowers are taken. But that happens to lots of graves, she conceded.
It is a grave she rarely visits these days.
``The last time I returned to the grave was four or five years ago,'' she said. ``Sometimes, I watch on the late movies on TV how people go to cemeteries all the time. I think, maybe that's the way it's supposed to be.
``But I just can't do it,'' she said. ``I can't go to that grave.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Kenneth Arnder was the second youngest of Wilma Arnder's six
children. He and his mother are shown in a 1978 family photo.
ASSOCIATED PRESS/File
``I don't know if I will go to the execution'' of Dennis Stockman,
Wilma Arnder said.
KEYWORDS: MURDER DEATH ROW by CNB